ENHANCING VOCABULARY THROUGH TRANSLATING STORIES BY THIRD - YEAR STUDENTS MAJORING IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE: A CASE STUDY AT SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Short stories are often used as a supplementary material to help increase the vocabulary of English learners. This article presents the practice of short story translation to improve students' vocabulary in module Advanced English Translation for a group of 35 English-language juniors. This is a case study, using such data collection tools as questionnaires, translations of short stories and glossaries constructed during the story translation process, and tests to get information to answer 3 research questions: How do teachers assess students' vocabulary? What attitude do students have about the importance of vocabulary in the learning process of translation? And How does short stories translation help increase students' vocabulary? The results obtained are very positive as the majority of students show significant improvement in many aspects, especially vocabulary. Short stories are proven to be both authentic and aesthetic learning materials for learners to develop vocabulary and other communication skills.